Conrad Black was convinced he would win, and he got most of his charges dropped or was found not guilty, but he still did jail time for a few counts. But people survive prison. Aaron Swartz likely had other problems that the case against him exacerbated. Seems like the UK was right not to send Gary McKinnon to the USA.
Plea bargaining seems so convenient and pragmatic in the movies and on TV, but in real life it has come to look like corruption and with different defendants playing the game against each other.
Jeff, I'm glad you can be open about some of your personal issues. Stay with us. We want you to bring us TIE Fighters, but whatever happens, just be there for your family.

When Joel Spolsky, my business partner on Stack Overflow and Stack Exchange, asked me what I wanted to do after I left Stack Exchange, I distinctly remember mentioning Aaron Swartz. That's what Aaron was to us hackers: an exemplar of the noble, selfless behavior and positive action that all hac...

I apologize for the scarcity of updates lately. There have been two things in the way: Continuing fallout from International Backup Awareness Day, which meant all updates to Coding Horror from that point onward were hand-edited text files. Which, believe me, isn't nearly as sexy as it … uh …...